Posted
by
samzenpuson Monday May 27, 2013 @03:38PM
from the half-empty-glasses dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Techcrunch takes a look at why so many people seem to make fun of Google Glass. From the article: 'Google Glass isn't even on sale yet and there is already a noticeable backlash against Google's first experiment in wearable computing. It's odd to see a product that was greeted with so much hype a year ago endure the love-hate cycle so quickly – even though there are only a few thousand units in the wild. Sure, we've done our share to popularize "glasshole" as a way to describe its users, but the backlash seems to go beyond the usual insidery tech circles.'"

I don't like google glass of one reason. I hate advertisers why would I want ads transmitted to me just because I walked by a store?

Oh that isn't a feature of glass yet? just wait it will come right along with the face recognition.

Glass doesn't solve much. Most people don't need a heads up display. It will be heavily dependent on your limited mobile bandwidth. At least when people hold up their cell phone you can tell when they are recording you. With Google glass you won't be able to tell at a glance.

I've spent the last 8 months wearing a pair of sunglasses that contain a camera in the bridge, mostly because I see lots of stupid drivers on the road, but also because google glass has been coming along. I'm careful to remove the SD card fairly regularly, but in that 8 months only 3 people have questioned my very chunky glasses with half cm buttons on the left side.

People don't care about privacy, not until it's the "creepy" guy staring at them instead of the average guy.

I would be willing to bet that if you started telling people you were recording them that you would quickly find your self in the creepy category. Depending on the crowd and location it wouldn't surprise me to find out if you get the crap beaten out of you too.

When you live under a government that will hack reporters' computers and secretly seize their phone records simply for doing their jobs, when they willingly and admittedly use government arms to persecute people who have qualms about their agenda - why wouldn't we believe that Glass could turn anyone into their watchful, ground based drones?

You don't think the DOJ, the executive branch, or anyone else in government would not have the capability or would stop short of hacking these internet-connected devices?

Why would we place more faith in those who prove themselves to be less trustworthy the more power we give them?

When a private corporation gives in to all government demands, that's not a non-sequitor. At this point it's an accepted reality that the USG has positioned itself to access any private corporation's data on any private citizen without even applying for a warrant.

As internet accessible recording devices become more and more prevalent, there will be a literal panopticon of information available, and do you think government's won't attempt to exploit that?

Getting into the scale of things, right now I could conceivably still live without the internet at home, or know that if I turn my phone off and leave all GPS devices at home, I can take a walk without the government tracking me. As soon as there is a critical mass of Glass type devices out in public, there is practically no chance that I could walk to a location without the government being able to track me down.

Look at the Boston Marathon bombings. They weren't tracked by anything other than photos taken by the public and a handful of CCTV feeds. Imagine if one quarter of people in that crowd had a Glass type device on their face, and the government continued to have the right to access our devices without our permission. What do you think will happen?

You're making the false assumption that the government would need to 'hack' a device or get a warrant. Google glasses provides the ability to simply upload it into the public domain. In other words, there would be little reason for a warrant. They could at some point, tap into any persons public life, relatively easy with face recognition software, and by scraping what's publicly available on the internet.

The difference here is that it isn't readily obvious if a person is being recorded. it adds a whole new range of 'creepy' to this gear. If you see someone holding a phone, they typically hold it in an almost horizontal fashion as they look down to navigate or browse. If you find someone holding a phone in front of them in a vertical fashion, it would be immediately obvious that they are recording or taking a photo. Glasses turns on the display, which could easily just be someone browsing, or doing any number of other activities. It's the fact that these could become mainstream, and could easily cloak that people are taking photos or videos with their target being unaware of what's going on. Only a fool states that only those doing something illegal have nothing to hide. EVERYONE has something to hide, be that a nasty habit of picking your nose, buying RID at the pharmacy, throwing Chicks with Dicks out in your trash, staring at your brothers wife's ass at the family reunion and having it uploaded afterwards, picking up HIV drugs at the pharmacy, etc. All of these things are potentially in the public view, but they are typically not readily available to be recorded an uploaded to youtube at the whim of a total stranger looking for 'likes' or a few laughs.

People have a certain expectation of privacy even in public, where a potentially live camera removes all doubt, and it can be uploaded to the net, which NEVER forgets.

Is it really that hard to understand why there is so much hate? Public surveillance is totally different in that the common public doesn't typically access it, and it's typically not available to upload on a whim to the net where it could potentially live forever.

It sounds like it could be easily tackled by mandating any such recording devices to have a standardized outside-facing indicator (e.g. blinking purple LED) that can be used to tell at a glance whether the person using it is recording you at any particular moment.

Just because technology makes a thing possible, doesn't mean it should be done. You seem to have forgotten that. There are often moral dilemmas associated with new technologies. Society hasn't put the proper expectations around this one, or looked at another way, the 'hate' is exactly that; an expectation that the technology needs to change to become acceptable to the public.

Yes, except the government and most large businesses will make it off-limits to wear the glasses on their premises, making it, in effect, a one-way data stream-- about you, to them. So it isn't really like it's leveling the playing field. Sure, there will be the odd case here and there where someone catches a government worker or a corporate CEO doing something they shouldn't oughta, but most of the time, it will be them, watching you. And to top it off, they're gonna show you some pretty pictures, a game,

If this has a face recognition system app built into it. See your wife, it brings up anniversaries, birthdays etc.. See a congressman, it brings up a list of all the corporations/organizations that fund him and a list of his voting record. See a random stranger, bring up criminal records if any, etc..

So recording someone is bad, but beating the crap out of someone is socially acceptable?

Never. But if someone goes into a bar wearing these things, they might expect some response. Kind of like someone peeoing in your teenage daughter's window at night. You aren't supposed to beat th eguy up, but the perv shouldn't be all that surprised when it happens.

Do you see tourists with cameras getting punched in the face often?

Seems to me a case of assault like you describe should be videoed.

Its all a matter of context, which you seem to be blurring. I'll bet I'm in hundreds of tourist photos, and no doubt some have been posted on the internet. I was there, they were there, no harm done. I could care less. I suspect most people coul

Except, no, that isn't the case, at least not in the United States. Neither is it in the case in Canada nor the United Kingdom. You have no expectation of privacy when you're in public, and unless someone tries to resell the image as part of stock photography or something you cannot stop them. You do have an expectation of privacy in a restroom, but no court is going to say you have an expectation of privacy walking in a park. And if a policeman did take my camera and destroy it, I would have action against that police officer. That is absolutely not legal and neither does a police officer have any right to make you stop taking pictures in public. There are exceptions, like military bases, federal buildings, or many private owned areas (like a football stadium), but for the most part you can take as many pictures of whoever you want in public areas and it does not violate the law.

Tourists snap pictures of Times Square - and thousands of people - daily, without permission. Teenagers take videos of each other - and passers-by - at malls & nightclubs and we don't object, though it's pretty likely those shots are getting uploaded to Facebook or YouTube.

What most of us object to is a lens following us around and staring fixedly at us, and if a tourist or teenager or Glass-user did that, most of us would demand they stop. But only a psychopath would punch a tourist or teenager in the

So you're saying people would "understand" the assault, like when a drug dealer caps someone who scratches his ride? So long as you don't mean "fair enough, he had it coming". Because to me at least, incidental video capture, creepy stalking, and physical assault are all widely separated on the scales of acceptability.

it's not happening to them (you know, fat chicks complain about lecherous young men... because they're not looking at them).

you were doing so well up until this point. not particularly informative or interesting, but not completely pointless and stupid either.

but this is just idiot baying-pack misogyny.

"fat chicks" don't complain about lecherous young men "not looking at them" - they complain about them treating them like shit, insulting them for no reason, expecting them to suck their cocks "just because they're fat so shouldn't be fussy", groping and assaulting them, and occasionally raping them for being fat and unsympathetic characters unlikely to prevail in a court-case.

most "fat chicks" would like nothing better than to be left alone to get on with their lives in peace without being spat on or worse by creepy arseholes like you.

Uh, no. A gym is a privately owned establishment. It is not public unless it is a taxpayer-funded gym owned by the governemtn. A bathroom is inside of a privately-owned establishment. The exception would be a public building like a courthouse. No clue what the law is there, but I'm thinking, since people get arrested for cameras in bathrooms, and this is easily googleable, that there are laws against that. Specific laws for specific situations.

There are different definitions of "private" and "public" for different purposes under various laws.

For example, under the civil rights laws of the 1960s and 1970s, places of public accommodation were forbidden from discriminating on the basis of race. That would include hotels, Woolworth lunch counters, public and private schools, places of employment, etc. Some of these restrictions were limited to places involved in interstate commerce.

Most pictures taken in public will capture private property. That doesn't make them illegal and subject to different laws.What matters is the reasonable expectation of privacy. It's not a difficult concept, really. It protects you from people taking upskirt photographs even in public places, and in most civil law countries, also from having photographed without knowledge or consent.

and I am right. You are wrong.

Your polemic skills are just astounding. How can I possibly argue against such a master?

That Wikipedia entry looks like it was original research by a non-lawyer based on a bunch of Google searches and books written for non-lawyers.

For one thing, legal expectations of privacy vary from state to state.

There are public places with no right to privacy, and so many exceptions that you can't make general statements. The right to privacy is like swiss cheese.

Photographers know this very well. They can take photos in a public place and publish them under some circumstances, but not under other circumstances.

One photographer took a photo of a black man dressed in a business suit with a briefcase walking through Grand Central Station. The New York Times magazine published it on the cover to illustrate a story on "The Black Middle Class." He sued and won, complaining that it subjected him to ridicule and invaded his right to privacy and right to control his own image.

Another photographer set up an automatic camera on 42nd St., took photos of people walking by, blew them up as large-format portraits, exhibited them in an art gallery and included them in a published gallery catalog. A subject sued him, charging that his right to privacy was violated. The judge ruled that he was in a public place, and should have been prepared to be photographed. If they used his photo on an advertisement or a peanut butter jar, the courts might have come to a different conclusion.

Another example of the right to privacy is the right to have an abortion. Now, I feel pretty strongly that a woman should have an absolute right to decide whether or not she has an abortion. But I read Roe v. Wade several times and, while I'm glad of the outcome, I don't see where the right to privacy comes from or how they applied it to that case. They seemed to have pulled a rabbit out of a hat. Yes, people have sex in private, and use contraceptives in private. But people also use heroin in private. People buy and sell heroin in private. Why doesn't the same right to privacy extend to selling heroin?

So why do you not have the same backlash against camcorders? Or cell phones that can record video?

If people are in a private bar, and someone whips out their cell or camcorder, and starts recording everyone in the place, you can bet the response will be the same as with Google glass.

Even more, wiht the other technology, it is pretty obvious when the user is recording. They point it at you. but is that creepy perv in the corner staring at you, or are they recording with their Glass?

At one time it was socially unacceptable to be seen dating someone of another race, or to breastfeed, or to kiss the sa

I'm sure people would care more about your creepy glasses if they new what they were. Most people aren't really going to equate chunky glasses with hidden cameras, so of course no one seemed to have minded yours.

I run a motel, and I have hidden cameras in every room. I've been doing this for three years, and not once has anyone complained. This whole privacy issue is way overblown; obviously people just don't care.

I agree, the general public isn't as paranoid about privacy as many are here on Slashdot:I've spent the last 8 months filming up women's skirts using a secret, hidden camera built into my shoe. Not one woman has complained yet.

I find people don't care about privacy, not until it's the "creepy" guy staring at them instead of the average guy filming them without their knowledge.

Media playback seems to be one of the least demonstrated functions. The mains ones are the camera and notifications. I think it's the camera that has people most upset because when someone wearing Glass looks at you they are pointing it right in your face and you have no way of knowing if it is turned on and streaming live over the internet to other people or being recorded.

I can see Glass being massive for porn and voyeurism. We had better get the etiquette of removing it before entering the locker room sorted out pretty quickly. Are people going to take it off when entering the men's lavatory too?

Scanning these first comments, most of the complaints seem based on their own idea of Glass, or perhaps what they fear future devices may end up as, but not what Glass is today.

For example: It's crap as a media player (sound is poor, video is low-res and washed out) . It's not "always-on recording" or streaming everything to Google, and would rapidly run out of battery if you tried. It does light up when recording or taking pictures, like a regular video camera (and unlike phones or keychain camcorders). And Google specifically forbids ads on the whole platform.

Maybe one day some people will wear devices that are worth the hate, but Glass isn't it. Personally I see it all as another manifestation of the recent anti-Google narrative that's been so carefully constructed (e.g. ask yourself if you'd have the same reaction to "Apple Glass").

It does not light up like a regular video camera. A regular video camera has a very obvious red LED the turns on when it's recording. Glass does not. Glass just has the screen light up. And you can't necessarily tell the difference between the screen lighting up because it's recording and the screen lighting up because the guy just go an email.

Incorrect: It does have a bright "recording" LED on the front which lights up when video or photos are being taken. It would help your argument if you knew what you were complaining about before actually complaining.

Remember people walking around talking to themselves? Remember the "I'm not talking to you, I'm on the phone" hand gesture? It combined being rude with wearing a dorky looking apparatus. And that's what Google Glass is.

Yes, we all remember that, and it took exactly One exposure for people to realize that Bluetooth made a lot of sense in some situations, and didn't impact the privacy of others around the user.

When you whip out your camera and photograph my desk or back I am forewarned, and have time to rare back with the haymaker that will surely be your next experience. But there is no defense against people walking into your store, your office, your meeting wearing Google Glass.

Bluetooth affected only the wearer. The camera in google glass attempts to make everyone near it fair game.

We should demand "recording" LEDs indicating when cell phone cameras are on, and the same for Google Glass.Either that or remove the camera. 95% of everything Glass was designed to do can be done without the camera.

I can only imagine how badly retailers are going to hate it. They don't want you photographing in their stores as it is with cell phones...I wonder how long before there's a glass app (if that's what they call it) that just scans your camera input for bar codes and qr codes at all times.. As soon as it sees one, it runs the bar code through amazon to get cheaper prices for you. Yeah it already exists on the iphone.. But I'll bet they will hate it even more. I wouldn't be surprised to see more calls for cel

Get over it. If you're out in public you have no privacy. Any time you go to the store you're captured in dozens of camera views even before you make it into the parking lot.

"But there is no defense against people walking into your store,"

When I walk into your store, you're already videotaping ME, why should you have a problem if I level the playing field?

It's the difference between a surveillance society (which we already have) and a sousveillance society. Already we can be held to account by those running the cameras, but those in power are desperately trying to make sure we can't hold them accountable by the same means:http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kern-beating-fbi-20130515,0,760051,full.story

I think if you're out in public, it's fair game. If you don't want guests coming into your residence or a private function wearing it, tell them to take it off. It's like shoes.

They're only 1/6 the price of Glass at current and undetectable at a glance. What's your plan for stopping these? A sign on the door?

"justify everybody recording everybody else whenever they want just because its legal"

Again, exactly the same thing can be said about the cameras in your shop, the ATM camera that also overlooks the street, the cameras you have under your awning pointing at the sidewalk, cameras in the condo lobby, the underground parking lot, the restaurant you ate at last night, the cameras on light poles, the cameras in cop cars, dash cams, etc.

If you don't want to be videoed, I suggest never leaving the house. At least Glass gives the common courtesy of being clearly visible as opposed to all the concealed cameras we're exposed to daily.

"everybody recording everybody else whenever they want just because its legal"

And this is the other interesting part of the whole debate. Seeing as battery life and storage space are still concerns, Glass won't be recording 99% of the time. And frankly, *you're not that interesting, so why the fuck would I spend precious resources to record your boring ass?* The camera's there in case something interesting happens.

And frankly, *you're not that interesting, so why the fuck would I spend precious resources to record your boring ass?* The camera's there in case something interesting happens.

Problem is, times that you start considering me interesting have a bad habit of being the very times I least want to be caught on permanent record.. at least for a large portion of the various values of 'you' and 'I'. A large chunk of Youtube exists because of that phenomenon!

Me walking down the street normally? No one cares. Me drunk off my ass and serenading a lamp post? That shit's worth recording! Guess which one I'd regret when my boss finds it online?

I want the camera to facial-recognize people and put their names over their heads, because I am bad with names. But people like you are too busy whining to even think of the positive applications. (Same thing for translating foreign languages would be nice too, then I could actually order at my local establishments.)

Douchey response. I'm not talking about a "handful" of "friends" and "associates". I'm talking about everyone I've ever been introduced to. For most people, that is over 1,000 people. When you start a new job and go to a big meeting full of people from other companies, do you memorize all their first and last names in one introduction? Great job. Not all of us have that ability. Some of us have disabilities that make it hard to recognize people.

Names and addresses and habits? Douchebag. That was never said. Go fuck your strawman somewhere else.

It is the always on, always front recording feature that bothers most people.

We're on camera ENOUGH already....I think a lot of people that aren't even that privacy conscious even are concerned about so many live feeds going to Google (or anyone for that matter, since the govt. will have free access to it too).

I would agree with you. But I don't. If everything's recorded then effectively nothing's recorded. Sure, all those cameras might be able to pin point exactly where you are at any given moment...but who cares to find out? Who's going to expend all the resources (cpu cycles, MONEY) to track you down? It'd be unfeasible to do that for everyone so only select few people could even be potential targets. And you're not one of those people. Sorry, but you're just not special enough to warrant searching through tho

I would agree with you. But I don't. If everything's recorded then effectively nothing's recorded. Sure, all those cameras might be able to pin point exactly where you are at any given moment...but who cares to find out? Who's going to expend all the resources (cpu cycles, MONEY) to track you down? It'd be unfeasible to do that for everyone so only select few people could even be potential targets. And you're not one of those people. Sorry, but you're just not special enough to warrant searching through tho

Where do you get the idea that it's always on and streaming to google? Glass is aggressive about power savings.

I had a chance to try Glass last week in Chicago and I believe that the owner stated around 3ish hours of battery life for non-stop video recording. You COULD attach a USB cable while wearing them and keep a battery in your pocket.

Look at it this way: If Google had developed a new battery technology that fit in the current Glass profile AND was 'always on, always front recording' then Google would have much bigger news than just Glass itself.

What do you do in the future when people have robotic eyes? Wearable cameras aren't going away anytime soon. Google Glass is the very tiny tip of a huge iceberg. Assume you are being recorded at all times outside of your home. You may not like it, but it is a reality we live in.

1. It makes you look like a cyborg. The fact that one would do this to their own appearance willingly puts a person so many sigma beyond what is expected in societal norms that it produces an insinctive negative reaction.

2. Being wearable, it conveys an "always on" notion, that many people find troublesome because although in theory, it does not invade their privacy any more than a person with a cell phone camera can, unlike a hand-held camera, there are no obvious gestures or poses that a utilizer of this technology will typically employ that tells casual observers in an immediately recognizable way that the technology is being utilized. Looking for an LED light is all very well and good, but human beings didn't evolve to look at LED's to tell them what was around them... we evolved to interpret body language.

3. It's simply far too easy to imagine people using this while they are walking or driving and thus paying insufficient attention to their surroundings to effectively navigate, potentially posing a danger to themselves and others around them.

4. It's always been socially cool to mock something that's new and different.

And underwent surgery in order to get rid of glasses as they were the worst annoyance in my life - so there's no chance of me using this product.

People don't realise just how much these things are going to negatively affect you - you are going to be cleaning them all the time, they are going to cause irritation and issue with our hair and the side of your head, they are going to range from being unnoticeable to unignorable literally in minutes all throuout the day.

That's my take on it all. The wearable aspect is just a poor substitute for what we have been "promised" in fiction, so until it brings the positives without the negatives that I already went to great lengths to avoid, I'm not buying into it.

At the moment Google Glass can't do very much, but it is only a matter of time before it does more.

I have mild face blindness, and it would be fantastically useful for me to have a pair of glasses that could identify who I was talking to.

Equally well, it would make life very difficult for me if other people had similar glasses. I run a website that is considered objectionable to some people. If everyone could recognise me every time I went out to buy milk, it would be very difficult for me to live anything like a normal life.

The passive-aggressive nature of social networks would be magnified if they were in any way integrated with Google Glass or indeed any wearable computer.

You have a cellphone in your pocket capable of doing just that, and pinhole surveillance cameras have existed forever anyway.

"Google Glass is scary because GPS!"

Your cellphone doesn't even need an active GPS setting in order to be tracked. As an Android App developer, I can just use a Network Location Provider and triangulate your position to within 100-1000 meters. If you have a cellphone, you're being tracked just as easily as with Glass.

"Google Glass is scary because it might serve me ads!"

That's from an early video parody of Glass. Ads are against Google's guidelines.

"Google Glass is scary because they're trying to get us to depend on it, then sneakily put in ads and spyware!"

Even if they do that, we've already got the dumped firmware for Glass. Just run a custom ROM on it.

"Google Glass is scary because some pseudo-libertarian tech journalist told me to be scared!"

Oh ok, I guess that explains the inconsistency in your position. Funny how all these former pro-corporate tech gossip douchebags are suddenly worried about your rights. Where were they 10 years ago? And for that matter, where were you?

Architecturally, it isn't all that different from a cellphone(because it mostly is one, albeit wrapped around your head); but it's a cellphone without any of the social cues

Sure, a cellphone can be used for recording; but the one that's in your pocket, or sitting on the table, or being used by you to check your twitfeed likely isn't. It's just a matter of geometry: one camera on the back, possibly one on the face of the device. Similarly, it's easy enough for you to use your phone to ignore me; but it's also quite obvious when you do so.

Glass just takes those delightful features and makes "device is turned off; but these glasses don't fold, so I'm storing them on my face" and "device is actively recording and sending to the mothership" and every state in-between functionally indistinguishable. It's the equivalent of somebody holding a cellphone in recording posture, with their finger hovering on the controls, at all times.

"Gargoyles are no fun to talk to. They never finish a sentence. They are adrift in a laser-drawn world, scanning retinas in all directions, doing background checks on everyone within a thousand yards, seeing everything in visual light, infrared, millimeter. wave radar, and ultrasound all at once. You think they're talking to you, but they're actually poring over the credit record of some stranger on the other side of the room, or identifying the make and model of airplanes flying overhead. For all he knows, Lagos is standing there measuring the length of Hiro's cock through his trousers while they pretend to make conversation...."

and

"Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society. They are a boon to Hiro because they embody the worst stereotype of the CIC stringer. They draw all the attention. The payoff for this self-imposed ostracism is that you can be in the Metaverse all the time, and gather intelligence all the time...."

Glassholes are essentially a late-alpha/early-beta iteration of the Gargoyles from Snow Crash. The people who managed to bring the dickery that was bluetooth earpieces to an even more vital sense, along with just enough camera to get that 'incipient paparazzi' thing going.

Yea but they are always in the metaverse which is awesome. I would compare this more to the HUDs in Diamond Age, where you were still mainly focused on the "real" world yet had a plethora of information available to you at all times.

You know I really don't get this. Most people have smartphones (i do not) that do all sorts of monitoring already. The only difference here is that with smartphones, all the monitoring is directed at you, the owner of the smartphone. With google glass, it turns it all around. Now the rest of the world is monitored for my benefit using my choice of augmentations.

I view a smartphone, and phones in general, as a distraction of little substance, a tiny window into another world, like squinting down a long lanew

Anyone with a brain can tell that this level of mobile computer usage is ridiculous. It's bad for memory, concentration, social skill development, social interactions in general. Nobody should be able to have that much information streaming that quickly whenever they want. Then the stress of battery phobia combined with a growing dependence on the device equals a very stressed out user. It's a very, very stupid idea that's detrimental to humans in general.

It's a very, very stupid idea that's detrimental to humans in general.

You look at the evolutionary ladder and think: "I am at the top". I look and see yet more rungs to climb. I am a scientist. If you say these are detrimental, then I will insist that is an untested hypothesis, so long as it is. I share some of your concern, but I'm not arrogant or foolish enough to act on unproven hypotheses...

Is it that mysterious? Many people have already posted on many sites as to why. If people would stop asking why and start reading some of the answers, maybe they would understand...

It presents major issues with privacy, security, and etiquette. It isn't just dorky, it is rude, creepy, and invasive too. The author and Google (especially the CEO) seems to just completely skirt the entire issue of privacy- not only for the user, but all the hundreds of "victims" around a Glass user, every day. Take out your phone and hold it up in the air, pointed at everyone you pass, meet, talk to, sit next to, and see what kind of reactions ensue. This is nothing like static and unconnected security cameras. Exactly how much private information are we all going to be willing to give Google?

I don't have a Facebook account. I have a fake name on my Google accounts and Twitter. I don't ever use my real name on forums. I even gave Blizzard a fake name. I take GREAT care to leave my personal life off the internet and preserve my privacy. So now what do we have? Some asshole walking around taking videos or pictures in complete stealth mode with no LED to tell you it's recording or in use. Early adopters are also usually the tech-addicted people that put a picture of everything moderately interesting on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. If I start saying something funny or interesting to a glass user and they stealthy hit record, I don't want that video of myself out on their 1000-friend Facebook page without my knowledge.

For those of you about to say any video recording is public and the law says I can be video recorded at any time in public because that's the reasonable expectation of privacy, you're missing the logic of that. I want some basic privacy so then I guess I'll just never go out in public ever. Wait, no, it would be easier to just make Glass and other covert recording devices illegal everywhere.

It doesn't matter if there is an LED or not because it will be easy to mask or disable it or just not easy to see. The issue everyone is having is the popularizing of covert and in-your-face video/audio/photo recording.... and worse yet, something that dumps all its crap to a non-personal network.

Like you, I find it totally unacceptable. Cell phones and security cameras are already bad enough,

I mountain bike quite a bit and often I'll record my ride with a GoPro for later editing and sharing with my non-mountain biking friends/family. It's pretty much on the entire time I'm riding (2-3hrs).

However...

I don't wear it in the car, the post-ride restaurant, during long breaks, to the bathroom (either in the restaurant or out in the woods).

If I showed up with the GoPro recording in a restaurant, I'd be calmly asked to turn it off. As that is behavior that is clearly not accepted.

Sure pinhole cameras have been around forever, but GoogleGlass will be mainstream, whereas pinhole cameras aren't that common. Plus the modders will come along and put the GoogleGlasses behind a pair of nondescript sunglasses and you'll be able to record (read: blackmail) whoever you want. Your boss tells a dirty joke at work... hello raise.

People keep on comparing Glass to bluetooth headsets without actually reflecting on why we hate them. It bears repeating: we hate them because of those several awkward seconds where you try to reply, thinking you're being addressed. The "asshole" part comes when the headset user says something like "hold on, this guy thinks I'm talking to him" or something else that implies you're an idiot for not immediately recognizing the headset. It's embarrassing, and insulting, and dismissive. In short, it takes basic social conventions and protocol and rudely slugs it in the face. Said social conventions, even the customary "good morning" a fuel station clerk greets you with, is lubricant for the social gears of society, and those headset users are sand in the works. It's not the headsets at all - its the people using them that never apologize for the misconceptions they cause, or politely put their conversation on hold when they walk up to a pay window.

Everyone screams and wails about being "recorded in public," which I find hilarious, considering how much we're already recorded, tracked and observed. If you're in public, people can record you freely, and no court of law is going to give a rats ass that somebody was able to SEE you when you went walking around on a public sidewalk. No, the real discomfort comes from having a computer screen between you and the person you're talking to. Google Glass is the first step towards things like augmented reality and other such technologies; but the precedent we've all learned from is the Arrogant Headset Asshole; and so naturally that's the first association we make.

People freak out over things that are new and different. Even more so for things that impact one's lifestyle. The same thing happened with the ipad. Additionally it has a lot to do with geek culture in general. For as much as techy people like to pat themselves on the back when it comes to standing outside trends, the reality is that it's a remarkably stagnant and brittle subculture that's even more terrified of change than that of the average person.

It's an intersection of concerns with facial recognition, tagging and Big Tech's seemingly callous indifference to our privacy , all of that hitting up against our evolutionarily bequeathed intuition that when we walk along in life, we have more than a modicum of privacy amongst strangers. Basically people fast forwarded in their imaginations to (creepy... or otherwise) people using Google Goggles to look at us on the street and download a ton of information about us by matching our face to social media pictures of us or our house to information about us or our license plate to stuff people have said about our driving.

Take a picture of something and start talking about it with everyone quickly becomes take of picture of something which identifies us and start gossiping with strangers about us in even ordinary people's minds.

FB is bad enough. Now we're going to be tagged and bagged as we walk down the street. Hot girl? Who is she? Where does she live? Whoa look as this... DUDE!!!

That kind of thing is fantastically invasive and creepy and it's exactly what will happen because all new technology becomes porn why? because we're monkeys whose chief and overwhelming concern was is and always will be reproducing our genes with the hottest thing we can land in order to maximize our genetic fitness. Even if you don't think that's the reason all new technology becomes porn, the fact is , all new technology becomes porn of some sort , if only gossip porn.

So yeah, that's why people hate Google Goggles.

Google should have, at all times and at all places loudly ferociously and very publicly defended the anonymity of their users come hell or high court subpena.

The only thing I see from an earpiece user is the initial "Is this guy bat crazy" look, but then you get it and go back to normal. I could say the same thing about people who wear baggy jeans below their butts, or people wearing wrestling T-shits. Its a style that leads to stereotypes. Can I be assumed to be a creepy uber nerd for wearing glass? You may draw that line, but I wouldn't. They have a value use case for some, and that alone dictates that with a better industrial design could at least be a small

There's a need in my life that Glass can fill that my smartphone can't.

you misspelt want

I ride a motorcycle, while I'm on the road, I can't pull up google maps, or check to see what that alert sound was (assuming I even hear it).

when you're on the road, you should be paying attention to the road, not to a screen, not to alert sounds from your e-devices, and not to phone calls.

if you need to look at a map or take/make a phone call, stop at the side of the road first.

at least on a bike your momentary distractions are more likely to kill yourself than others, but you're still placing others at unneccessary risk. pedestrians don't want or need you and your bike plowing into them at 60 K or more, and whle it may seem at times like car drivers want to kill you, they really don't want you messing up their paint-work.

He chooses what to post on to the internet. If somebody wearing Glass walks up to you, your property, or your workplace, you have no choice in the matter as to which of your activities gets uploaded to Google.

He chooses what to post on to the internet. If somebody wearing Glass walks up to you, your property, or your workplace, you have no choice in the matter as to which of your activities gets uploaded to Google.

So what? If you're in a public place, you had no expectation of privacy to start with... and a world where you did, where people are prevented from photography in public by virtue of needing to get permissions from every single person near them, is no world I'd want to live in at all.

I think this touches on what is, in fact, the much bigger issue facing society today. While it's true that what you do in a public place is, by definition, a public act, the consequences of such an act have changed dramatically over the last few years. There is a tremendous difference between someone doing something stupid in public that is seen by maybe 10-100 people and then shared via word of mouth and someone doing something in public that is video taped and posted on the internet for countless millions to see. If I'm walking down the street and trip and fall and a few people see me that's going to be embarrassing, but it will be nowhere near as embarrassing as if my tripping and falling is recorded and ends up on YouTube.

The barriers to spontaneous recording like this have continued to fall, but barriers do still remain. If I see something happening on the streets right now I have to take out my phone (or camera), launch the camera app (which has become much easier), and begin recording. With glass, all I have to do is say something like, "OK Glass, record video" (or whatever the actual command is). This significantly lowers the barrier to capturing almost anything. There are certainly advantages to this when you're recording someone you're close to or who has consented to your recording (think capturing your kids first steps), but there are also tremendous disadvantages when it comes to privacy and strangers.

People on either side who are pretending that this is a simple issue are mistaken. Painting the issue as black and white, either everything is allowed or nothing is, ignores the intricacies of what's being discussed. Glass introduces an entirely new layer of complexity to the privacy debate that is separate from (but certainly related to) the debate about public webcams and government surveillance. I personally think that it's a good thing that people are at least thinking about these issues, as in the past they have largely been ignored. Maybe we can now start to return to an era where we appreciate the importance of privacy once again. The rules have to catch up to technology at some point.

Different again! The cars are recording in loops, and they are recording straight ahead of them. How do I know? My brother lived there 6 years! Also a car going at say 100 KPH is not going to record much of me walking along the road.

If you run into your ex-girlfriend while in public, there is no real problem. No harm, no foul. It was a chance meeting. If you run into your ex-girlfriend at every single public place you ever go, it is a problem. Your favorite restaurant, your doctor's office, in front of your new girlfriends house, outside your new girlfriend's children's school. This would be very bad and deserving of complaint even though they are all in public places.

No. Walking up to your property is not the same thing as walking on your property.

So someone is an asshole because they have the ability to record a video of you? I hate to tell you this, but everyone you see has the ability to record a video of you; EVERYONE! And you may not even know they have a camera.

Classic strawman. No, people don't think people who own video cameras are assholes. They thing people who relish the idea of wearing them on their face are assholes.

Much the same as people don't consider people with mobiles phones to be assholes, but do consider people who constantly walk around with bluetooth headsets in their ears to be assholes.

I think part of the problem here is that people are afraid that things they do in public will be made public.

There's a bit of that. But mostly people just don't like assholes. And pointing

On the ad front, people said the same thing about android. I haven't ever obtrusive ads. Same thing with gmail and search, they are there, but entirely to the side.

Frankly this sort of advertising is far less intrusive then most offline advertising. Consider the omni-present ads on busses and taxis and billboards, the flood of intrusive ads on TV and radio. I would far prefer to substitute those for google's approach: show me something I might actually want in a very unobtrusive fashion.

On the privacy front, your argument is straw-man. Privacy is already destroyed, constant surveillance is the norm now that literally everyone is carrying at least one camera. Glass may well improve the situation by reminding people of that.

Because, let's face it; I think most of us geeks would love to have a HUD that can display any information we need right in front of us without the need for a laptop, tablet or cellphone. There's been many a time I've been somewhere and wished I could just look up some information but didn't have access to a compute (and looking up anything on a phone is frustrating and agonizing). Glass is a step in the direction I want to go (retinal dig